The Arizona champion., 1887-04-30
RAILWAY &ccIpss rs,

Scarcely a week paSscS that the telc. graph dispatches d not cor .aia the horrGying intelligence of some fresh disaster, which empha'izes the fact that precautions for the preservation of the lives and limbs of travellers have again been neglected. This matter is being brought home to us in N rth- ern Arizona by the numerous wreck, winch are of almost daily occurrence os the Atlantic & Pacific railroad. The most serious of ,thes. accidents occurred near Canon Diablo lst week, when a freight train tore up things in a lively fashion, killing two men and completely stopping all traffic for nearly three days. This disaster oc. cured at a small trestle bridge, over a dry water course. The structure was not more than fifteen feet loRg and four feet in height. It.had been burnt, set on fire it is sarnised by a live coal which dropped from an engine that had passed over it a few hours before. It was destroyed as far as it usefulness as bridge IS concerned-without any ore being aware of the fact.
 Such circumstance Is thoroughly appalling. Had the ruined freight train been au hour later-and their usual time is sort of go s-you- please-or had the passenger coming the other wvy been on time, the freight would have side tracked and the passenger express would have met the same fate the freight did. As the thirteen cars were hurled in all di- rections, piled on each other, and the first four of them knocked into splin- ters, the dullest imagination can pic. ture to itself what the result would have been had the passenger made the attempt to cross that bridge.
 Almost all of these so,called acci, dents are the result of criminal care lessness on the part of the railway management, the principal factor oI which is penuriousness. If you ask, what was the cause of this fatal disas ter, near Canon Diablo1 the answer will be, through the accidental burn. ing of bridge. Let us look at the facts, to begin wlth-what was tn. bridge built of3 Probably pitch pine at all events it was iahunnable enoug|, to catch on fire by stray coal from | passing engine. Now, having put in these inhammable bridges the railway company give them every opportu nity to burn, without being seen, by extending the sections a longer dis tance than any section boss can possi ply look after, and paying some poor fellow starvation wages to walk more track than he can possi ply cover and properly attend to hi duties, When the bridge burns, which 1t does, because it is made oi material which will easily burn, and there is no one to give an alarm ant prevent trains from being hurled tc destruction and human lives sacrificed a sapient coroner's jury solemnly de. clare the whole thing to be an acci dent and exonerate the railway com pany and every one connected with them from blame These were exactl, the circumstances of the Canon Dia bio disaster and the coroner's Jur, rendered just such verdict.
 This bridge episode is only one Q many dangers, too numerous to call at tention to here, which makes travelin! a matter of great risk, bu! it is an exam pie fresh in the minds of our people which serves to torcibly illustrate tho argument that false economy on tn, part of the directors of the A. & P road has led to numerous accident and will probably lead to more, un less the road is put in better condi tion. In many places the ties ar loose and partially rotten, totally un fit to stand the strain of a heavy en zine passing around curve.
 l Stringent legislation on this matte is badly needed. Railroads should be prohibited from placing fire trap on their tracks and should be com pelled to have their read carefully ex amined every day by track walkers By an old axiom of common law
 corporation cannot be punished tor
 criminal offence, but its employees ca
 be so punished. It is often said tha "corporations have no souls" Thi is true, but they have pockets and tha is where their life blood circulates